TCAF in Tokyo 2018

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival returns to Tokyo to participate in several comics events!

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival exists to promote Canadian Comics and Culture at home and abroad year-round. This year is literally the biggest year in the history of our trips, as TCAF’s contingent of comic makers will be joined by counterpart festival QUEBEC BD and a full-contingent of French-Canadian comic/BD creators too! In total, more than 17 Canadian authors will be exhibiting at Japanese comics festivals and participating in various events around Tokyo!

Event information below. Most artists will be at all events, unless otherwise noted in the event description. Full Artist bios are below. TCAF in Tokyo header by Kagan McLeod.

Tokyo’s Indy Comic Event returns to Temple University. All of the TCAF artists listed below will be in attendance, but there will likely be two shifts of artists each for half a day (morning and afternoon). A full schedule will be posted here once space and timing has been confirmed.

Kaigai Manga Festa is Japan’s first event introducing international comics to Japanese artists. With support from cultural organizations, festivals, and embassies, Kaigai Manga Festa (later renamed in English Tokyo International Comic Festival) features dozens of artists from around the world presenting their work. In addition, there are talk-show panel discussions between creators. TCAF will have a large booth in the center of it all!

The Canadian Embassy, in coopraeration with the Quebec State Government Overseas Office, TCAF, and Quebec BD, will host a unique evening exploring Canadian Comics Publishing. Comics, BD, Manga, whatever you call it Canada is home to some to unique talents, perspectives, and is publishing some of the greatest comics in the world. TCAF’s Christopher Butcher and Quebec BD’s Thomas-Lous Cote will present an overview of the Canadian Comics Publishing Market, featuring over 17 Canadian creators in attendance. Then in a special discussion, Christopher will interview creators with unique perspectives on international publishing and comics creation, including Japanese-Canadian author Takeshi Miyazawa (Mech Cadet Yu, Ms. Marvel, Runaways) and more guests TBA. The evening will also include a large display of Canadian comics and graphic novels from over a dozen publishers, and an exhibition of original TCAF artworks.

As this is an Embassy event, advance registration is required. Registration information will be made public in early November.

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Festival Staff

TCAF will be represented at these events by staff including Terence Abrahams, Jocelyne Allen, Peter Birkemoe, Christopher Butcher, Cleo Peterson, and Jarrett Samson.. TCAF is also grateful for the assistance of Mimmy Shen and Aki Yanagi in helping to manage our participation in these events!

Exhibiting Groups:

TCAF – The Toronto Comic Arts Festivalトロント・コミックアート・フェスティバル（TCAF）

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival exists to promote the breadth and diversity of comics, and what is considered comics, as a legitimate medium of literary and artistic worth. We seek to promote the creators of these works in their broad and diverse voices, for the betterment of the medium of comics and to reach as wide an audience as possible for them. The annual TCAF Festival is held each May in Toronto, Canada, in partnership with The Beguiling Books & Art and Toronto Public Library. In addition, TCAF undertakes several international trips each year to promote Canadian comics, their creators, and Canadian publishers, to new audiences around the world.

Québec BD’s mission is to organize events and promotional activities for comics, particularly those created in Quebec. Founded in 1988, the organization has also been working on the development of the 9th art by helping the authors and the various actors of the comic world to meet, to develop projects and to be at the heart of public activities.

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The Beguiling Booksざーびがいりんぐ

Celebrating its 30th Anniversary in 2017, The Beguiling is North America’s finest comic book specialty shop. Located in Toronto, Canada, The Beguiling carries the most diverse and eclectic array of comics imaginable, from art comix and indies to superheroes to BD to manga and more! The Beguiling also represents the original art sales of dozens of fantastic artists, check out beguilingbooksandart.com for everything!

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Exhibiting TCAF Authors:

Michele Assarasakorn / ミシェル・アサラサコーン

Michele is a digital painter based out of BC, Canada. She has experience working in animation/film/games and comics. She is best known to comic fans as the background painter for the series’ Gotham Academy (DC Comics) and Isola (Image Comics), working with series lead artist Karl Kerschl. http://msassyk.com.

Rupert Bottenberg is a Montreal-based illustrator, muralist, writer and editor. He is a co-director of the En Masse collaborative art initiative, the director of the animation section of the Fantasia Film Festival, and founder of the Montreal Comic Art Jams. In 2012 he released his debut solo book of comix and artwork, Traumstadtdenken (Éditions Trip), which won the annual Bédélys Indépendant award. In 2017, Bottenberg released two books, Traumstadtdenken 2 (Éditions Trip) and Fourscore Phantasmagores (ChiGraphic).

Johnnie Christmas is the co-creator of the graphic novel series Angel Catbird (Dark Horse Comics) with acclaimed writer Margaret Atwood. His newest work is adapting venerable SF author William Gibson’s script for the film ALIENS 3 into a graphic novel coming in early 2019 from Dark Horse Comics. He co-created the critically acclaimed Image Comics series Sheltered (with Ed Brisson), which has gone on to translation in multiple languages. He is the creator, writer and artist of Firebug from Image Comics, as well as co-creator of the sci-fi series Pisces. He is a graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, earning a BFA in Communication Design/Illustration. Johnnie makes Vancouver, B.C. his home. http://johnniechristmas.com/

Matthew Daley is an illustrator and comic artist combining hand-created textures, stamps and found objects into vector illustrations to create a rugged, painterly look. He has been published in the Boston Globe, Toronto Star, Today’s Parent, and the Wall Street Journal. As half of the duo PlierPants, with writer Cory McCallum, Matthew has self-published comics since 2012 including the neo-noir tale The Pig Sleep: A Mr. Monitor Case, which won the Gene Day Award for best self-published comic at the Joe Shuster Awards in 2013. Matthew lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife Lindsay and cat Mistress Muffin. http://shinypliers.com/

Alex Degen is the creator of the graphic novel Soft X-Ray/Mindhunters, published by Canada’s Koyama Press. He was born in Brooklyn, NY. After a time in Tokyo, he now lives and works in Connecticut. He made his Koyama Press debut with Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater (2015), and he’s appeared in various anthologies including The Best American Comics edited by Jonathan Lethem. http://adactivity.tumblr.com/

グラフィック・ノベル “Soft X-ray/Mindhunters”（コヤマプレス）の作者。ニューヨークのブルックリンに生まれ、東京で暮らした経験を持ち、現在はコネチカット州在住。2015年に “Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater”（コヤマプレス）でデビューし、作品は ” The Best American Comics”（ジョナサン・レサム編）をはじめ多くのアンソロジーに収録されている。

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Brenden Fletcher / ブレンダン・フレッチャー

Brenden Fletcher is a Canadian comic book writer whose current projects include Motor Crush and Isola for Image Comics, and Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network for Kodansha. Previous work includes the New York Times best-selling Batgirl of Burnside, the the YA mystery/adventure series Gotham Academy, and Entertainment Weekly’s “Best New Series” of 2015, Black Canary, all for DC Comics. He contributed the acclaimed Flash story to the Eisner and Harvey Award winning Wednesday Comics, co-created the Power Rangers: Pink mini-series for BOOM Studios and contributed to the Attack on Titan Anthology for Kodansha. https://www.brendenfletcher.com/

Matt lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he creates picture books, comics, and design for animation. His first comic, Ojingogo (Drawn & Quarterly) was nominated for two Eisner awards and won a Doug Wright Award for Best Experimental Comic. He followed in up with the comics Jinchalo (D&Q), Comics Class (Koyama Press), and short comics for the Adventure Time comic book series. Recently he was the Lead Designer on the animated series ‘Adventure Time’ at Cartoon Network, and illustrated the children’s picture books The Brilliant Deep (Chronicle Books), The Bad Mood & The Stick (Little Brown), and The Gold Leaf (Enchanted Lion). http://www.comingupforair.net/

Karl Kerschl the Canadian writer/illustrator of series including The Abominable Charles Christopher, Gotham Academy, and ISOLA (Image Comics). He has been drawing comics professionally for more than twenty years. His clients include DC Comics, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, Netflix, Ubisoft, and Dreamworks Animation. https://www.karlkerschl.com/

Renee Nault is the artist of the Handmaid’s Tale graphic novel, and the author and artist of Witchling. She is known for her vivid and dreamlike illustrations in watercolour and ink. Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and advertising worldwide. She currently lives in Victoria BC.

Angela Pan lives in Vancouver, Canada. She is an honours graduate from Sheridan College’s animation program, and has worked in the animation industry for 4 years as a background painter and environment designer. She also works as an illustrator and comics creator, self-publishing numerous short works. https://www.angelapanart.com

Mike Parsons is a Toronto based fine artist who uses black and white ink drawings, comic books, graffiti street art, and animations to express an optimistic warning towards future days.“HEY APATHY!” is an ongoing artistic investigation into the city, people, monsters and existence in general. Since 2001 the “HEY APATHY!” artworks have been featured in over 25 major exhibitions winning awards and honors from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. http://heyapathy.com/

Cameron Stewart is a New York Times Bestselling writer/artist. His work includes the series Motor Crush from Image Comics, Batgirl of Burnside (DC Comics), Fight Club 2 (Dark Horse Comics), Batman & Robin (DC Comics), The Other Side (DC Comics), Sin Titulo (Dark Horse), and much more. He lives in Toronto Canada. https://www.instagram.com/cameronMstewart/

Christine Wong is an illustrator and cartoonist based from Toronto, Canada, and currently living near Tokyo, Japan. She is a recent graduate from Animation at Sheridan College, and was the founding president of Sheridan’s Comic Making Club, BOPU Squad. She is also a member of the comics collective Hello Boyfriend, and exhibits at various conventions and zine fairs in Canada and the USA. https://onechrispy.com/

Stéphanie Leduc studied comic books in university, and did college studies in animated drawing. Shortly afterward, she won notice in Europe with several short stories for the weekly Spirou and the magazine Lanfeust. In 2010, she revealed the fabulous universe of Titi Krapouti, published by Glénat Québec. Stéphanie Leduc has a strong bent for fantasy set in parallel universes. She does the writing, design and coloring. But with her new erotic series, she is adding a new string to her bow by becoming a publisher, by self-publishing her book Dryad, as Laduchesse.

Caroline Breault (aka Cab) is a comic book artist based in Montreal and the creator of the graphic novel series Hiver Nucléaire. Its english version, Nuclear Winter, will be published this spring by Boom! Studios. A full-time resident at Lounak Studios, she also works as a colorist and a freelance illustrator. In 2017, Cab received a nomination for the Joe Shuster Awards for best cartoonist.

Gautier Langevin is a writer and screenwriter born in Montreal. After obtaining a degree in literature at the University of Montreal, he launched, with Olivier Carpentier, Front Froid, an organization that promotes comics in the province of Quebec. Since then, he joined Studio Lounak as a business partner and contributes regularly to several comics and short stories anthologies (Le Front, TRIP, Contes et légendes du Québec, Je me souviendrai). Moreover, he has published two books with Ta Mère publishing company (Sens uniques and M.I.C.H.E.L. T.R.E.M.B.L.A.Y.) and wrote the story behind Far Out, nominated for a 2014 Shuster Award and at the Bédéis Causa 2015. Today, he is also editor and Vice-président of Studio Lounak.

Nunumi (Christine Dallaire-Dupont) has been part of Montreal feature animation scene for almost 15 years. She participated to the creation of many productions, such as Ballerina, Snowtimes!, Suicide Shop. She contributed as 2D animator, character designer, and storyboard artist.
Since recently, she also evolves in the comic scene as writer and illustrator. Last year, her first book, Sky Rover, was awarded in Canada at the Joe Shuster Award and selected in Japan at the Japan Media Art Festival. In September 2017, she made her first professional visit to Japan and is back again this year with her new book called A Ticket to Nowhere.

Editions Lounak publish comics associated with speculative fiction. They were created out of a desire to make beautiful books from the incredible artistic work that is performed daily at Studio Lounak. Fascinated by American, European and Asian comics, they publish inspirering works from various artists.